Finally, there is a last reason why the issuing of this work at the present moment is timely. In 1896 the next International Socialist and Trade Union Congress meets in London. It is well that those who may attend this great Congress as delegates, and that the thousands of workers who will watch its work, should understand why the resolutions arrived at by the Paris, Brussels, and Zürich International Congresses with regard to the Anarchists should be enforced. The Anarchists who cynically declare Workers' Congresses "absurd, motiveless, and senseless" must be taught once and for all, that they cannot be allowed to make the Congresses of the Revolutionary Socialists of the whole world a playground for reaction and international spydom. ELEANOR MARX AVELING. Green Street Green, Orpington, Kent. August, 1895. ANARCHISM AND SOCIALISM CHAPTER I THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE UTOPIAN SOCIALISTS The French Materialists of the 18th century while waging relentless war against all the "_infâmes_" whose yoke weighed upon the French of this period, by no means scorned the search after what they called "perfect legislation," _i.e._, the best of all possible legislations, such legislation as should secure to "human beings" the greatest sum of happiness, and could be alike applicable to all existing societies, for the simple reason that it was "perfect" and therefore the most "natural." Excursions into this domain of "perfect legislation" occupy no small place in the works of a d'Holbach and a Helvétius. On the other hand, the Socialists of the first half of our century threw themselves with immense zeal, with unequalled perseverance, into the search after the best of possible social organisations, after a perfect social organisation. This is a striking and notable characteristic which they have in common with the French Materialists of the last century, and it is this characteristic which especially demands our attention in the present work.